Question

There is a powerful scene in the film, To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch a small town lawyer, is on the courthouse steps standing guard over Tom Robinson, a black prisoner whom he is defending. A mob of townspeople and local farmers approaches the courthouse, demanding that Atticus turn over Robinson; they are intent on administering their own form of justice. Suddenly, Atticus's young daughter Scout steps forward. She doesn't understand what's about to happen, and begins to address people in the crowd, "Hey, Mr. Cunningham, how's your boy? I like Walter, but I haven't seen him in awhile." As Scout innocently addresses a number of individuals in the crowd, they begin to leave one by one, that might have led to a lynching. until the whole lynch mob is disbanded. Scout's behavior disrupted the

a. diffusion of responsibility
b. social facilitation
c. social loafing
d. deindividualzation
e. first-shift rule

Answer 1

The mob is experiencing a behavior with a hive set mind through a concept in social psychology know as de-individualization which is generally thought of as the loss of self-awareness in groups to peruse one and only goal, the individuals becoming unaware of themselves.